While attending a function yesterday at the KTM headquarters in Murrieta, California, we bumped into Red Bull KTM team manager Ian Harrison. While a lot of attention is on Cooper Webb as he seeks his second Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, there have been some rumblings of a familiar face joining the team to race the upcoming Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship. With that in mind, we had to ask Harrison what the scoop is and here’s what he had to say.

By the way, look for more info from yesterday’s event at the KTM HQ in a few days.

Racer X: Can you tell me a little bit about a rumor going around about a second rider on the 250 team for outdoors, perhaps?
Ian Harrison: Yeah, it looks like Kailub Russell will be Max Vohland’s teammate for the nationals. We’re excited about that. John [Hinz, KTM North America President] was also really happy about that. Kailub has eight [GNCC] titles, he’s been an awesome ambassador for our sport. This was a goal of his, this was a dream of his, and now it’s coming true.

He obviously had retired [from GNCC] and had interest in racing nationals, so did he come to you guys and say, “Could we work out a program?” or did it just kind of fall into place where he’s with the KTM group, obviously wants to race nationals, and it was just a nice fit?
Pretty much like that, yeah. He was with the KTM group, he talked to his team manager Anti [Kallonen] about racing the nationals. They came and talked to us and we’re like, “Hey, it’s 12 rounds,” and John said, “Hey, this guy has been so special to our company, he’s done so much for us, it would be awesome to give back.” So that’s what we ended up doing and we’ll see how it goes! It’s going to be exciting!